Unbreakable
by carefreewishes
Summary: Modern day AU. When Leonard McCoy loses his wife, six year old daughter and his arm to a car crash, he's left struggling to cope in the empty house that used to be a home.
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

When Leonard first wakes up, he's barely conscious and he can just make out someone asking his name. He wants to answer, but he barely manages to realise something – he doesn't know what but he knows it's something important – is horribly, horribly wrong before he's falling unconscious again.

The next time he wakes up, he manages to stay that way.

He soon wishes he hadn't.

He'd been in a car crash.

He's lost his arm; a rogue metal plate from the other car was lodged in it. The doctor – it's someone he doesn't know, he wonders if M'Benga or Chapel know what happened – is sorry, but amputation was the only option they had.

Joanna and Jocelyn are gone. The doctor – Dr Dowd – tells him they died on impact.

Leonard knows it's meant to comfort him, knowing that they hadn't suffered, he knows because he's delivered that same line more times than he wants to think about.

But now, now he just wishes that the metal plate that had taken his arm had been thrown a bit more to the left and taken his life instead.

Dr Dowd tells him he's lucky to have made it.

Leonard reminds him that his wife and six year old daughter are cold and lying in the morgue.

"What's so lucky about that?"

Dr Dowd doesn't have an answer for him.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

They keep him in the hospital for a week afterwards, Dr Dowd turning out to be good at his job, if not annoying.

"Depression is seen quite often in patients who've lost a limb." He says one day, as if Leonard wasn't a doctor himself.

"Depression is also seen quite often in patients who have to bury their family."

Dr Dowd leaves him alone after that.

Chapel shows up on the seventh day, bringing his grandmother with her. The elderly woman gives him a smile and he's not sure if it's meant to be supportive or sympathetic but either way, he can tell it's fake.

"You should be nicer to Dr Dowd, he's a good doctor." Chapel checks his file, notably looking anywhere but at him.

"Dr Dowd is a prick."

His grandmother frowns at him as she moves into the visitor's chair and Chapel swats at his foot with his chart.

"Don't be mean."

"He chopped off my arm; I have every damn right to be mean."

Leonard knows he's right in the silence that follows when neither of them will argue otherwise.

And if he's telling the truth, he wants to be mad. He wants to shout and throw things like you see on those piss poor day time TV shows.

Hell, he wants to cry. He wants to cry because he's never going to see Jocelyn in her new blue dress. He's never going to see Joanna's dance recital she was so excited about. He wants to cry because he's never going to hold a scalpel again. They haven't said anything, but Leonard knows.

You can't be a surgeon with only one hand.

But he's not mad, and he can't cry. He just lies in his bed and watches as Dr Dowd checks his arm and asks him how he's feeling that day.

Once, Leonard considered asking him if he took his heart out when he was cutting his arm off by mistake, because it sure as hell feels like there's an empty space in his chest now, but he knows that'll get him sent to the psychiatric ward, and that would mean he might have to spend more time talking with Dowd.

The closest he gets to feeling something is in the few brief moments between sleep and wakefulness. He doesn't dream about the crash, he dreams about moments they shared together; the holiday to the sea, Joanna's fifth birthday, their wedding day. The dreams almost convince him that they're still with him, but then he opens his eyes and remembers.

"The funeral is tomorrow, Leonard honey." His grandmother breaks the silence, and she goes to hold his hand before realising it's just _not there _anymore, and that seems to break down whatever façade of normality she had and she manages to croak out an 'oh Leonard' before throwing her arms around his neck and crying into his neck.

He watches Chapel shift her weight before mouthing 'I'm sorry' and leaving.

Leonard hates her a little bit for that. For being able to leave when he's stuck here, unable to feel anything other than empty. He wonders if his grandmother felt the same way when his grandfather died, when his father died.

He wonders if that's why it seems like she's trying to cry for two.

The hours before the funeral are awkward, to say the least.

M'Benga finally shows up with his suit after one of the nurses washes his hair and puts fresh bandages on the place where his shoulder used to meet his arm. She tried to brush his hair as well but that's where he drew the line and sent her on his way.

"He did a good job, Leonard." M'Benga says, doing Leonard's tie for him because, hey, guess what you can't do with only one hand.

"Oh good. I'll be sure to mention that at the funeral. 'Jocelyn, Joanna, I know you're lying in a wooden box six feet under, but at least my surgeon did a good job cutting off my arm.'"

M'Benga flinches at the bland tone but doesn't say anything. Leonard wishes someone would say something back, instead of looking at him like they understand how he feels.

Until they have someone ask what colour dress their baby girl would have liked, they can all fuck off.

"Leo..." M'Benga's looking like he wishes he was anywhere but here right now, and he's fiddling with a large needle of some sort. "I need to pin the sleeve up."

It takes a moment before Leonard realizes what he means.

"Oh, yeah. Go ahead."

They finally sign his release forms and Leonard ignores Dr Dowd's reminders to come in so they can start physical therapy and get him fitted for a synthetic.

They manage to make it all the way to the car park before someone gives him _that_ look again.

"Are you going to be okay, Leonard?" Dr Dowd asks, and Leonard frowns at him until he gestures towards the car. "You don't have to go, maybe it's too soon."

He vaguely recalls Dowd saying something about emotional trauma, not wanting to get into a car after the crash.

He'd say that he has no problem getting in a car, and that he hopes he does get into another car crash and that he isn't so lucky when he does, but that'd send him straight back to the bed he just left.

"Can we just go? I've heard its bad taste not to show up to your wife and daughter's funeral on time."

M'Benga just frowns at him before turning to promise Dowd he'll get Leonard to his appointments and then they finally leave the hospital behind them.

They're half way there when Leonard sees a gas station and realizes what he needs to make it through the day without breaking down.

"Pull in here."

"Leonard..." M'Benga is frowning when he sees what Leonard wants and puts 2 and 2 together.

"Geoffrey, please." He tries to ignore the way his voice cracks half way through, but he knows M'Benga doesn't, and that's the only reason the man is pressing a bottle of bourbon and a flask into his hand 10 minutes later.

"Just," M'Benga sighs, rubbing at his face with his hands. "Just call me if you need me. Call Chapel. Hell, call Dr Dowd. Just don't do something stupid, Leo, please."

"Yeah, okay. I will."

They both know he won't.

The church where they hold the funeral is nice. Leonard knows because it's where they buried his mother. It's where he got married. It's where he buried his father, and now it's where he's going to bury his wife and daughter.

Leonard wonders how many family members you have to bury before they give you a discount.

When he gets out the car everyone turns to look at him. Then he takes a long drink from his flask and everyone finds something else interesting pretty quickly.

He manages to get inside with only three people asking how he is – his grandmother and Jocelyn's parents. His grandmother he manages to deflect with a shrug and the fact no one wants to talk about how the gaps between him taking a drink from his flask are getting shorter.

With Jocelyn's parents he just tells them the truth; that he wishes he'd been the one to die, that Jocelyn and Joanna had made it instead. They tell him not to say things like that and that they're glad that at least they didn't lose them all, but he knows they wish for the same thing.

The priest finds him a few minutes before the funeral starts and asks him if he'd like to say a few words.

Leonard declines and if the priest looks relieved at hearing that, they both ignore it.

His grandmother sits on one side of him, with Jocelyn's parents on the left, and he wonders if Jocelyn's mom thinks she's being subtle when she flinches away every time she brushes against his side, and realises it's not his arm.

"Leo? Your hair is a mess." He turns and he feels the closest thing to happy he's been since the crash to see Nyota sitting behind him smiling.

"Nurses don't get trained to do hair, darlin'. Aren't you meant to feel bad for me and ignore my hair, anyway?" He asks, nodding towards her boyfriend, Spock, who looks slightly more uncomfortable than he usually does.

"I do feel bad for you. That's why I haven't mentioned the fact one of your socks is black and the other is yellow."

Leonard always liked Nyota. Jocelyn came home from work one day beaming about the 'lovely Miss Uhura' that had just joined her department at the real estate agency, and before he knew it, Nyota and Spock were round for dinner. He thinks he could kiss her right now for not giving him the 'poor Leonard' look everyone else has.

By the end of the funeral, Leonard reckons he's mastered taking drinks from his flask when the priest isn't looking at him, but besides that, he doesn't remember what was said, and it's only when Nyota taps him on the shoulder to stand up at the end that he even remembers they still have to put his baby girl and his wife in the ground. It's raining when they move out into the graveyard, and Leonard wonders when his life became one big cliché.

Spock finds him when they walk to the grave, Nyota having gone ahead to talk to Jocelyn's parents.

"Leonard, may I ask how you are coping? I understand that funerals can be… less than pleasant experiences."

Leonard remembers attending Spock's mother's funeral with Jocelyn. It had been strange seeing the man like that, exposed and vulnerable, even if did help him understand why Nyota was dating a man with a bowl cut.

"I keep trying to put my left hand in my pocket." Is the first thing that comes to mind – he wonders if that means he's getting drunk or just losing his mind – and he can tell Spock is just itching to say 'fascinating' or 'illogical', but they reach the grave before he gets the chance.

M'Benga, God bless him, managed to refill Leonard's flask at some point. He drains half of it by the time Joanna's coffin is in the grave alongside her mother's. He feels a sharp pain in his chest when the size difference between the two hits home, and he think he might have made a noise because suddenly his grandmother is there, wrapping her arm around his waist and holding him tight.

It feels like all he does is blink, and suddenly he's sitting at home on his bed, no memory of how he got there from the funeral, Nyota's phone number written on a post it note on his bedside table, and the bottle of bourbon sitting next to it.

It takes him a while to remember how to move, but eventually he does, grabbing the bourbon as he moves to lie on the floor in Joanna's room. He drinks half the bottle before the hour is out, and he falls asleep with the smell of Joanna's shampoo reaching him from her pillows.

Leonard wakes up during the night, when it's still dark, confused as to why he's in Joanna's room, and he wonders if Joanna had another bad dream.

"Baby girl?" He goes to push himself up onto his feet, ready to crawl into bed with Jocelyn before his shift tomorrow and falls, hitting the ground with a loud thud, and it all comes back to him then.

He can't push himself up onto his feet because he lost his arm in the car crash.

Joanna didn't have another bad dream because she's lying cold in a box six feet under.

He can't crawl back into bed with Jocelyn because she's next to their daughter, dead in a wooden box.

Suddenly the numb feeling he's been living with for the last week is gone, and the tears he couldn't cry earlier won't stop.

He cries till his throat is sore and he's run out of tears.

And then he drinks.

He drinks and all he can think of is how beautiful his girls were, and happy, and _alive _they were. They asked if he wanted an open casket at the ceremony and he didn't even have to think about it before he rejected the idea. They would've been too still, too pale. They wouldn't have been his girls.

Before the crash, they'd been listening to a song on Joanna's iPod and Jocelyn had been laughing at some joke Leonard can't remember the punch line to while Joanna played with a doll in the backseat. That's how he wants to remember them.

Just before he falls asleep for the second time, the bottle of bourbon lying empty next to him, he remembers his Grandmother praying during his father's funeral, and again today. Leonard tries to remember if he still believes in God, but all he can think of is the four gravestones with the name McCoy on them.

If there is a God, Leonard just hopes that he lets this end sooner rather than later.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

For the most part, everyone leaves Leonard alone after the funeral.

His grandmother calls once or twice, but after both phone calls end up in him making her cry, she gives up.

Dr Dowd phones, but Leonard doesn't bother answering, and blames M'Benga for giving the dickhead his number in the first place.

M'Benga visited him once, telling him the hospital wants to keep him on as a consultant, and that they'd help him make transition from trauma surgeon to physician. He tried to tell Leonard not to drink so much, remind him what it'll do to his nerves. Tried to remind him what it'll do to _him_.

Leonard threw a glass at the wall after he realised he'd tried to punch the man with an arm he no longer had.

Nyota visits him every day during her lunch break to make him food and remind him to shower, and they both ignore the empty bottles she puts in the bin each time she visits.

She also likes to remind him he's not gone to any of his physical therapy appointments, but doesn't force him to go.

He thinks he might love her for it.

Leonard told her where the spare key was so she could come and go as she wants, but she only used it once.

He'd passed out on the sofa – he couldn't wake up in sheets that smell of his wife, not again – and when he'd woken up, he could smell coffee and could feel slim fingers running through his hair and it was so much like those lazy Sunday mornings he used to live for that he just _forgot_.

"Jocelyn?"

He didn't open his eyes, but as soon as he heard the hitched breath and felt the tremble in the fingers in his hair, he knew it wasn't Jocelyn.

"No, honey, its Nyota, I'm sorry."

Leonard couldn't bring himself to look at her as he nodded.

"So am I."

From then on, she'd insisted on knocking on the door and waiting for Leonard to answer before coming in, checking his bandages and sending him off to shower, food and conversation waiting for him once he's done.

She'd only had to use it once; one night when Leonard had phoned her without realising, and she'd found him curled up on the floor of his bathroom, crying because the pain just wouldn't _stop_. She'd phoned Spock to tell him where she was and then she'd held him, rocking him back and forth as he cried in pain because of an arm that wasn't there anymore.

If he'd called her Jocelyn and asked why she'd left him alone and she'd just shushed him with a shaky "I'm here now baby, it's okay, it's okay" they didn't speak of it when he finally calmed down to be led back to his bed.

Today – he thinks it might be Wednesday but it could just as easily be a Sunday – Leonard woke up with his face stuck to the kitchen counter, an empty bottle of whiskey sitting in front of him, explaining his strange sleeping arrangements.

"I see you are awake, Leonard."

For a minute, he's convinced he's being robbed by the worst burglar known to man. His thoughts are a mix of '_oh good, maybe they'll shoot me_,' and '_what kind of burglar waits until someone's woken up to rob them'_, before he realizes he can see Spock staring at him from the corner of his eye.

"Spock, why are you in my house?" Leonard feels proud of the fact he's managed to peel his face of the counter, less so when he realizes the reason it was stuck in the first place was because he was drooling.

"Nyota requested I visit you, as she is unable to do so today, and I have the day free from work. She has a client; he is an old friend of mine."

"I don't need a damn babysitter, Spock."

He's managed to master opening bottles with one hand after all.

"I'm not trying to treat you as an infant, Leonard. Nyota is merely worried, and I share these concerns. You have not been yourself lately."

"That's because my family's dead, Spock." He wonders how pissed Nyota would be if he punched Spock.

It would probably be worth it.

"Perhaps if you left your home to visit the park, or to talk to your colleagues at the hospital, you might feel a bit better. It's been three weeks; no one has seen you apart from myself and Nyota."

Leonard shrugs and watches as Spock opens his fridge, obviously on orders from Nyota to make him eat something.

He isn't sure how to tell him he left his home in a hole in the ground, all he's got now is an empty house. He decides not to.

"I'll think about it."

He won't.

"I'm pleased to hear that, Leonard. I'm afraid I must leave you now; I feel that I should rescue Nyota from my friend. He can get... excitable." Leonard thinks about how much effort Spock must have put into using a word other than 'illogical' to describe his friend, but his thoughts are interrupted when a cheese sandwich is put in front of him.

He wonders if Joanna's lunchbox is still waiting on the other counter, waiting for Jocelyn to fill it up with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

He doesn't turn to look.

"Spock?" Leonard turns in time to catch the man before he steps out the front door, eyebrows raised as he turns back to Leonard. "What would you do? If you lost Nyota, what would you do?"

He knows it isn't a fair question; that it's an impossible situation, but he needs to know.

"I'm not sure that I would survive without Nyota by my side. She has become… very important to me." Spock frowns at him then, moving away from the door.

"What do you think I should do?"

"It's not for me to decide, Leonard, but I strongly believe you should keep going."

"What if I can't?" His voice is barely a whisper at his point, and he's already left his seat to grab the bottle of bourbon hidden away on the shelf, safe from Nyota's good intentions.

Spock sounds almost pained when he speaks next, the sound of the door shutting following him as he leaves Leonard to his thoughts.

"Then… you don't."

He looks around the kitchen slowly, taking in the things that made this his _home_. Joanna's lunch box, Jocelyn's recipe books, notes left on the fridge his barely legible scrawl.

Leonard manages to eat the sandwich despite the sick feeling in his gut, but he can't stop his eyes moving from Joanna's seat to Jocelyn's as he eats, just another reminder that he's all alone in a house made for a family.

"I don't think I can do this anymore, baby girl."


	4. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

Eventually, Leonard just stops.

He puts the food Nyota makes in the fridge after she leaves, never touching any of it.

He drinks his last bottle of alcohol and doesn't bother buying more.

He stops sleeping once he realizes the dreams of his family won't stop coming.

He thinks he sees his baby girl once. Thinks he can feel Joanna's hair as she hugs him.

"Why did you leave me, baby girl?" Leonard can feel the tears on his face and logically he knows Joanna isn't really here, that it's either his grief or a dream, but he can't bring himself to care. "Daddy can't do this by himself, princess."

She doesn't answer, and when Leonard wakes up next, he's not in his house.

He'd spent too long working in a hospital to not know what the fluorescent lights and white walls meant.

Leonard wonders how many times he'll wake up here before they give up on him.

He can see Nyota curled up in the visitor's chair, and Spock talking to someone just out of sight in the corridor.

Leonard hopes it isn't Dowd.

"Leo, honey? Are you awake?" Nyota takes his hand and he hears Spock's conversation pause.

"I wish I wasn't."

He hates himself for making her cry, but not nearly as much as he hates himself for surviving the crash.

"Leo? Leonard?" It's M'Benga this time, and Leonard wonders if this is going to be his life now. Waking up without remembering falling asleep. A different face with the same look of pity.

"What do you want Geoffrey?"

"You've got a lot of people worried, Leo. Nyota found you on the living room floor. She thought you were dead. Hell you nearly were dead. You're wasting away; we've had to give you an IV to make sure you were getting the nutrients you need."

That would explain the annoying itching sensation in his hand.

He wonders if he can pull it out without anyone noticing.

"Leo why are you doing this?"

Leonard thinks saying "I want to die" might be a bit overdramatic, and would definitely get him confined to the hospital for longer than necessary.

So he goes for "Can I go yet?" and tries to ignore how rusty his voice is.

"I… no, Leo, not yet." M'Benga runs a hand through his hair as he pulls something out of his pocket. "I was going to come round to give you this, but I recall you weren't so pleased to see me last time."

He puts Leonard's wedding ring in his hand, and it's only then Leonard realizes he hasn't been wearing it.

It feels like someone kicked him in the gut when he realizes it's because he doesn't have a left hand to wear it on anymore.

"Thank you."

"I'll come by and see you later, I guess."

Leonard thinks he can hear Jocelyn humming, and can feel her fingers running down his spine in that up, down, up, rubbing motion she used to do to wake him up.

He rolls over and she's there, smiling at him and he reaches out for her before he can stop himself.

"You're not real." It hurts him to say it, nearly as much as it hurts to see her shake her head, her smile turning sad.

"No, baby, I'm not."

He blinks and she's gone, and all he can see is Nyota sitting in her chair, hand pressed to her mouth as she stares at him.

"She's not real." He says, voice shaking as he lowers his hand. "Not anymore."

Leonard rolls back over before she can say anything, and this time, he cries himself to sleep.

They let him go after a week, which is plenty of time for Dr Dowd to pester him about his no-longer-there-arm. He tells Leonard he thinks he's ready for prosthesis.

Leonard tells him to fuck off.

Spock drives him home, telling him that Nyota is already there restocking his fridge.

They send him off to bed as soon as he steps through the doorway and he happily goes, collapsing into his bed, trying to chase the fading scent of Jocelyn's perfume.

When he wakes up again he treks downstairs to see Nyota and Spock camped out on the couch in his living room.

"I told you, I don't need a damn babysitter." Is the first thing that comes to mind, and he resists the urge to check his kitchen drawers, to see if she's replaced all his knives and scissors with something a bit duller.

"Apparently you do, Leonard." Nyota snaps, looking frustrated and sad at the same time and Leonard knows he's scum for putting her through this. "What was your plan? Let yourself waste away into nothing?! You still have people that need you Leo! You still have people that love you!"

"What do you want me to do, Nyota?! My family is dead! My wife is rotting in the ground and my daughter is right there next to her!" Its a low blow but Leonard doesn't care right now, not when Nyota still has Spock sitting next to her, not when she still has her family.

"I want you to act like you still give a damn about life! I don't want to have to go to bed each night wondering if I'm going to wake up to a phonecall saying you killed yourself in the night! I..." She has to take a breath to calm herself, and Leonard tries to hide his flinch when he sees Spock press a kiss to her hand. She's quiet when she speaks next. "I just want you to be okay."

Leonard deflates then, falling into the armchair opposite the couch.

"I don't think I know how to be okay anymore." His voice sounds as broken as he feels, and when Nyota wraps her arms around him, her warmth just makes him realize how cold he is. "People keep leaving me and I... I don't think I can do it anymore."

"They don't want to leave you sweetie, I _promise_ you, they don't want to leave."

He manages to wrap his arm around her and buries his face in her side and he almost convinces himself he can pull himself together until Spock's hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes gently.

And then it's like every bone in his body turns to liquid and he just falls against Nyota, and he can't stop the sobs that are being ripped from his throat.

"I just… I just have moments where I forget they're gone. I wake up and I go to get Jo up for school and her room it's just…_ empty_." He tries to breathe but he can't, it all hurts too much. "I called Mrs Crawford the other day. I asked her if Jo was at Stacey's house for a sleepover. I can't do this, I just _can't_."

Nyota shushes him then, running her hands through his hair. He thinks he hears Spock move into the kitchen, the sound of the coffee machine coming to life as he goes.

"Why don't you stay with us tonight? We'll set up the sofa bed and you can get some food and a shower. We'll check your arm; I'll phone Dr Dowd so he gives you a break."

Leonard's not sure if he agrees to go because it's what he needs, or because it'll help Nyota. But either way, he finds himself freshly showered and on their couch while Spock looks at the space where his shoulder used to become his arm.

"I didn't know you wore leather." There's a leather jacket resting on the side of the sofa Leonard's never seen before. It's well worn and he's pretty sure he can see three different brownish red stains on the sleeves and collar.

"I don't. My friend left it here when he visited last night."

"Is that _blood_?"

"Knowing Jim, probably." Nyota puts a bowl of tomato soup in front of him, her other hand pulling her hair into a ponytail. "You'll get to know him sooner or later, he just moved into town."

"Thanks for the heads up, I'll make sure to avoid him." Leonard snorts as he pokes at his soup nodding his thanks to Spock when finishes putting his bandages back and gives him the okay, getting up to phone Dr Dowd.

"Good luck with that, he's your new neighbour." Nyota grins at him when he chokes on the soup. "I sold the house two days ago, he's moving in today."

"I hate you." Leonard thinks she might take that a bit more seriously if he wasn't draining the soup from the bowl.

"Jim Kirk is a perfectly acceptable neighbour for Leonard." Spock pips up from somewhere behind them, apparently done with Dr Dowd.

"He can go be a perfectly acceptable neighbour for someone else, I don't want him."

It's the first conversation he's had since the crash that has been about something other than the pathetic state his life is in, and he's not sure how to feel about that.

So Leonard does what he does best lately and puts his soup bowl on the coffee table and goes to sleep.

He wakes up when he feels something brush past his hand.

"_Shit_. Sorry. Go back to sleep." Someone hisses at him and he blinks his eyes open, meeting bright blue eyes and a dark room, Spock and Nyota must've gone to bed already, and seeing as neither of them have blue eyes…

"Are you a burglar? Nyota will kick my ass if I let you steal something." He's half way back to falling asleep again, but he feels like he should be a good friend before he does.

"What? _No_. I'm here for my jacket." The potential burglar sounds amused now, and Leonard's just about to drift off when he feels a blanket being placed on him. "Go back to sleep, I promise I won't steal anything."

"Better not. Nyota's scary when she's pissed."

The burglar chuckles and Leonard thinks he says something like 'and don't I know it' but he's too far gone into sleep to tell.

He dreams of Jocelyn on their wedding day, how she looked in her white gown, how happy he was during their first dance, thinking that this was all he needed; his beautiful wife and the smell of her perfume reaching him from where he was pressing kisses to her neck.

Then he dreams of Joanna on the day she was born, so _small_ but still fitting perfectly in his arms, and how Jocelyn was still the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen even though she was exhausted and red in the face, and how he didn't think he'd ever have enough room in his heart to love anyone again other than his girls.

It's still early when he wakes up, the sun barely making an appearance, but the dreams have left a sharp stabbing pain in his chest and he knows he can't stay here.

His house is a 20 minute walk from Nyota's, but seeing as he's in no position to drive, he sucks it up.

If he stops at the gas station along the way to buy more alcohol, it's just to break up the walk.


	5. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

When Leonard gets home, he rings Nyota.

"Did anything get stolen last night?"

"No… Why, did you steal something?"

"No." Leonard sees flashes of blue and hears a whisper of an amused chuckle. "Had a weird dream. I'll talk to you later."

He starts drinking and doesn't stop until he hears Joanna's laughter and catches the scent of Jocelyn's perfume on the draft from the open kitchen window.

Around lunchtime the sharp pains in his chest faded into the numb emptiness that had become the norm for Leonard now.

Then M'Benga shows up and manages to completely and utterly fuck everything up.

"Leonard I'm just saying you need to stop drinking and think about things for a minute. You're going to fuck your nerves up. You're going to fuck your liver up. You're going to fuck your god damned life up!"

They've been arguing about this for an hour now, Leonard's arm started to ache five minutes ago, he's been painstakingly sober for at least twenty minutes, and he has never wanted to punch someone as much as he wants to punch Geoffrey M'Benga right now.

"My life _is_ fucked up, if you hadn't noticed! Who cares if my nerves are fucked up!? It's not like I'm going to be cutting someone open anytime soon, or is the hospital that desperate for staff they're letting anyone slice and dice nowadays?!" He felt a sadistic thrill of pleasure when M'Benga dropped his gaze to the floor, refusing to look at Leonard.

Because that was what this was all about. The hospital still wants Leonard back, never mind that he just spent two weeks in there as a patient, never mind that he had told at least five different people where they can shove their job offers.

"Leo, think about it, please." M'Benga keeps looking at him like Leonard's a skittish animal, hands held out in front of him. "Jocelyn wouldn't want you to be like this. She'd want you to carry on, she'd want yo-"

"You don't know a damned _thing_ about what Jocelyn would've wanted!" Leonard hisses the words at him, because who the _fuck_ does M'Benga think he is bringing up his wife like that. "Jocelyn wouldn't have wanted this, but you know what else she wouldn't have wanted? She wouldn't have wanted to be rotting in a hole with our six year old daughter rotting right along with her! So I guess it doesn't matter what anyone wants because there's no way in hell we're getting it!"

"I know you want me to suddenly be able to cope with this, but I can't. I can't just stop feeling like this, just like my family can't stop being dead! I should be the one in the ground, and it's killing me that I'm not! That I have to stay here, without them, and pretend that everything is okay. I can't even breathe without feeling this fucking ache in my chest, Geoffrey! So tell me how the _fuck _you expect me to care for other people when we both know I can't even care for myself!"

"Just come back to the hospital, Leo, it might help. Give you your routine back." M'Benga actually sounds desperate now, and Leonard wonders if this is out of friendly concern or if his job depends on getting Leonard back to work.

He hopes it's the second one so the asshole's week is ruined.

"I don't want help, Geoffrey. I just want to be with my family."

M'Benga's about to say something when there's a knock at the door followed by an awkward cough.

"You guys alright in here? It was getting kinda loud, and you left the door open."

They both turn and suddenly Leonard's met with bright blue eyes and a blood stained leather jacket he swears he's seen before.

"_Are you a burglar?"_

"_What? No."_

"We're fine; I was just discussing work with Leo here. You are…?"

"Oh, I'm Ji—"

"Like hell. You were trying to bully me into going back to a place where I'd be useless and where I'd be reminded of that damn fact every day!"

"Leo…"

"You used my wife Geoffrey, _my God damned dead wife_, to try to get me to go teach some snotty nosed brats about bones when I don't even have all my bones left!"

The potential-burglar-that-isn't-a-burglar, _Jim_ Leonard reminds himself, is watching them from Leonard's sofa; apparently deciding that letting himself into a stranger's house to mediate an argument was fine and dandy.

Leonard still couldn't wrap his head around the idea Spock is 'old friends' with someone that has blood stains on his jacket and lets himself into other people's houses.

_Spock_.

Really.

"I didn't mean to bring Jocelyn up like that, I'm sorry, but you can't stay cooped up in your house all the time drinking yourself to death!"

"It's a free country isn't it?" Leonard can see Jim's lips twitch from the corner of his eye and he's glad to know he's still got his sense of humour even if he feels dead inside.

"You're being unreasonable about this, if you would just hear the hospital out…"

"Oh. The man who lost his family and his arm is being unreasonable. God forbid."

"Leonard…"

"Just leave, Geoffrey." Leonard can hear the fire and the anger drain from his voice just as he feels it drain from his body, leaving just a tired, numb feeling behind. "The only way I'm setting foot in that hospital is if I'm a patient, and I think you knew that when you came here."

M'Benga sighs and nods, turning towards the door. "The job is right there if you ever change your mind."

"I won't."

"I know." M'Benga gives him one last frown and then he's out the door, leaving Leonard alone once again.

Well, almost alone.

"Why are you in my house?" He turns towards Jim and the fucker has his feet on Leonard's coffee table.

"I told you man, I heard shouting and your door was open, I was concerned."

"Let me rephrase; why are you _still_ in my house?"

"I'm a good citizen." The brat has the nerve to beam at him, and Leonard decides if he doesn't get his fucking shoes off Leonard's fucking table, he's going to deck the guy, old friend of Spock's or not.

"Bullshit. Good citizens don't put their muddy boots on people's coffee tables."

"Oh sorry Bones, bad habit. Hey this is real fancy, is this real wood? I just bought the cheapest thing at the furniture shop, it cost like $10 because there was this crack in the plastic or whatever, but it's not like that bothers me, y'know?" Jim moves his feet off the coffee table to lean forward and stroke it like he's never seen polished wood before.

Leonard doesn't know.

He doesn't know why the kid is in his house.

He doesn't know why a coffee table made of wood is being treated like it's the second coming of the messiah.

And he certainly doesn't know who the fuck Bones is.

"Bones?"

"Huh? Oh yeah, that's you."

"_Bones_?"

"Yeah y'know, teach snotty nosed brats about bones, don't have all your bones. Bones. It fits."

Leonard can't decide if he's extremely offended or just still in shock about the whole "I'm going to enter your house and molest your table" thing.

"You are a snot nosed brat, you son of a bitch." Leonard growls, because frankly, the guy _is_ with his blonde hair and happy-go-lucky grin.

It's enough to make him sick.

"Hey, hey, hey, I'm 27 thank you very much." Jim pouts at him then, stopping his molestation of Leonard's table long enough to throw his leather jacket on the back of Leonard's sofa, revealing a threadbare grey t-shirt and Leonard wonders where exactly he gave the impression that Jim was welcome to stay.

"Oh you're 27. In that case feel free to stay in my house, make yourself at home."

Jim just grins at him, nodding like Leonard's told him a funny joke.

"I think we're going to get along swimmingly, Bones."

"Stop calling me Bones." He snaps, and then adds "And get out of my house." as an afterthought.

"Why? Isn't this what neighbours do? Go round each other's houses, bring food? I would've brought food, but all I have is like three apples and that's kind of my lunch for tomorrow."

"Neighbours that want to talk to each other, sure." Leonard deadpans, taking swigs of bourbon from his seat in the armchair, opposite Jim.

Like fuck is he leaving the guy alone in his house when all he's got is Spock's opinion to go by.

"You know, you should probably take some painkillers," Jim half frowns at him suddenly, not in the pitying way everyone else does, but like he can't figure something out. Hell, the kid even stops touching his table to frown at Leonard. "If your arm is bothering you that much."

"My arm is fine." The one that's still there, anyway. The one they cut off is hurting beyond belief.

They teach you at med school about phantom pain, but only now is Leonard realizing how horrible it really is. Pain in a limb that isn't there, pain you can't do anything about? It's the worst thing he can think of.

"Not that arm."

"I don't know if you noticed, genius, but I don't have another arm anymore." Leonard has to force the words out because at some point he started gritting his teeth.

Jim just shrugs at him, half frown still in place. "Doesn't mean it can't hurt."

"Get the fuck out of my house." He's about two seconds away from throwing the bottle of bourbon at the asshole's head and just dealing with Spock later on.

Jim stares at him a little bit longer before shrugging again, grabbing his jacket as he pulls himself to his feet. "I'll see you around, Bones."

"Like hell you will." But Jim is already out the door, and Leonard is left talking to an empty room.

At least an empty room won't care if he drinks his life away.


	6. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

Jim Kirk, it turned out, had nearly as much free time as Leonard.

"Don't you have a job to go to?" He'd snapped when Kirk let himself into Leonard's house one Wednesday morning.

Because apparently that was Kirk's thing. Letting himself in. Leonard had tried locking the door but the brat had just stood there knocking, and singing, _off-key_, until Leonard opened the door to tell him to fuck off.

"I'm currently unemployed, but I'm glad to know you care, Bones." Leonard had watched from his armchair as Kirk went through the motions Leonard had, unwillingly, gotten used to as the days passed.

"Stop throwing your jacket on my sofa. Stop letting yourself in my house while you're at it." He snapped, and watched as Kirk stretched out on his couch, jacket flung over the back of it.

"But if I do that what will you do with your day? Admit you like my little visits." Kirk spent a good ten minutes trying to find the TV remote without getting up that day.

Leonard had hidden the remote the night before.

He knew it was childish, but Jim Kirk isn't exactly what most people would consider a mature adult.

"I like it when I'm left alone. I like it when I have a bottle of alcohol in my hands. Your little visits? Those I do not like. A bit like how I don't like you."

"You don't mean that."

"I really do."

That had been Wednesday.

Today was Friday, and today, Leonard's arm was on _fire_.

He couldn't remember how he made it to the bathroom and he couldn't remember how long he'd been there, because all he could think of was his arm.

"Bones? Bones! Open the door!" Kirk's voice jolted him back to the present and he was shocked to note he'd started crying at some point.

"Bones I'm not kidding, open the damn door or I'm kicking it down."

He's trying to understand why Kirk doesn't just come in – part of him not wanting Kirk here at all, because Kirk is an asshole, but the other part needing someone, _anyone_, here to get him through this – but between the burning pain that's taking up his thoughts, and the panic that's building because he can't think because of the pain, and not being able to think is _terrifying_.

"Bones this is your last chance, unlock the door before you _lose_ the door."

And eventually he manages to pull himself off the floor long enough to reach up to flip the lock on the door, and suddenly his vision is filled with bright blue eyes.

"What's wrong? Hey, hey!" Kirk's grabbing his chin and making Leonard look him in the eyes. "Look at me Bones. I need you to tell me what's wrong. I can't help if I don't know what's wrong."

Leonard shakes his head because Kirk can't help, not with this, and that just makes him start crying all the harder because he just wants it to _end_, just wants to go to sleep and wake up with Jocelyn and Joanna and for it not to hurt anymore.

"Your arm? What about your arm? Does it hurt? Leonard, talk to me."

He hadn't realized he'd spoken in the first place but somehow he manages to nod, and he can feel Kirk sigh.

Then Kirk starts to stand up and Leonard's grabbing at his trousers before he knows what he's doing.

"Don't leave me, don't leave me, oh God just don't leave me." There's a voice shushing him, and an arm wrapping around his waist, and he can feel movements as Kirk messes with something out of sight.

"Not leaving you, Bones. I promise I'm not leaving. We'll ride this out together, okay?" Kirk moves back to him then, carefully wrapping his other arm around Leonard's chest. "You just gotta trust me, okay? Now take deep breathes Bones come on, deep breathes."

He tries but there's another wave of fire and it steals his breath from him and rips another sob from his throat. He's pretty sure he passed the hysterical marker a while ago.

"Bones we're going to get up now, okay? We're not moving far, we're just getting up to make it better, I promise."

"I can't" Leonard repeats that over and over, even as Kirk pulled him up to his feet, bracing Leonard against his chest.

"Raise your arm for me Bones. Just raise your arm and I'll do the rest, okay? That's all I need you to do, just raise your arm."

Somehow Leonard does what Kirk wants, and he can hear whispers in his ear as Jim pulls his shirt over his head, and then Kirk's moving him again.

He cries louder when the water touches his stomach, claws at Kirk's skin when he forces Leonard to sit down in the bath, moving him so he sits between Jim's legs and can bury his face in Kirk's neck, his arms wrapped around Leonard's waist to keep him up.

Jim – because it is Jim now, now that Leonard's clinging to him and crying into his skin while they both sit half naked in a bath tub – just keeps shushing him, running his hand over Leonard's skin, whispering "it'll be okay" and "I'm right here, I'm not leaving, I'm right here" into his hair.

He flinches when something cold catches his face, and he manages to blink open teary eyes.

"Dog tags?" Leonard slurs, tilting his head to look up at Jim.

"Yeah, dog tags." Jim gives him a small smile that turns into a wince when Leonard cries out again, digging his fingers into Jim's ribs.

"Tell me." He manages to force the words out, moving closer to Jim to try and avoid the water, sobbing when Jim shifts down in the tub again, moves Leonard with him so the water covers him to his collarbone. He needs something to focus on, and Jim's voice is better than nothing.

"What about Bones? Why I have them?" Jim waits a moment for Bones to nod, and then he shifts, rubbing a circle onto his ribs.

"I'm in the marines, Bones. Shocker right? Trusting a, what did you call me again? Oh yeah, trusting a snotty nosed brat like me with a gun?" Jim teases him, letting go of him with one arm to move the tags so Leonard can make out a bleary "KIRK, JAMES T."

"James?" The pain is starting to fade into an ache, and Jim's voice is a soothing anchor as Leonard feels it travel through his chest as well as hearing it murmured into his ear and it helps the sobs fade into silent tears.

"Jim to everyone that matters Bones, but yeah. James. My dad was in the marines, and my granddad was in the navy. Nowhere near as interesting as being a grumpy trauma surgeon, but there you go."

Jim's silent for a moment then, and Leonard can feel his breath hitting his hair.

"How's your arm, Bones? Do you want me to go get a towel?" Leonard starts shaking his head before Jim can finish the sentence.

"Just try not to fall asleep on me, hey Bones?" Jim chuckles then, and Leonard can feel it make its way up his chest. It's low and deep, and the exact opposite of Jocelyn's.

"I miss my girls, Jim." He whispers it into Jim's neck, memories of him and Jocelyn sharing a bath, not unlike this creeping in.

Jim's silent for a moment, shifting so he can hold Leonard closer, whispering a sorry when Leonard groans at a fresh wave of pain hits him.

"Do you want to talk about them?" He sounds as awkward as Leonard's ever heard him.

"I… It's just hard without them; I don't think I can go on without them." He can't get his voice to go above a whisper at this point and his body feels heavy, though heavy with grief or pain or just the tired feeling that runs through his bones, he doesn't know.

Jim doesn't say anything, just hums at him quietly.

"Have you ever lost someone close to you?"

"I, uh, my dad, I guess. But he died before I was born so I guess that doesn't really count, huh?" Jim lets out a half-hearted chuckle, but it falls short and he lets out a long sigh. "Yeah, I've lost people Bones. I've lost more men than I want to think about. They were good men; good men with families waiting back home for them."

"But…"

"But I've never lost someone as close to me as close as Joanna and Jocelyn were to you, no."

Leonard snorts, nodding.

"It sucks. It really, really sucks, Jim."

"I know Bones, I know."

"No, you don't."

"I know." Jim sighs the words, and Leonard can hear the small bump as Jim leans his head back against the wall.

They're quiet for a while after that, and eventually Leonard's tears stop falling.

"How's your arm?" Jim's quiet when he speaks now, and Leonard knows he should feel embarrassed about having been found sobbing on the bathroom floor, about crying half naked to another man in a bathtub, but he's just too tired to care.

"It's not good," Leonard starts, shifting his remaining arm against his side. "But it's okay."

"I can work with okay." Jim shifts then, and Leonard looks up to see a frown. "Just feel glad you're wearing pyjama bottoms Bones, I'm sitting here in jeans."

"You poor thing. Wet jeans, truly the worst thing in this life."

"Shut it, old man." Jim grins down at him then. "You good to sit up by yourself Bones? I'll go get some towels."

"Yeah, yeah." Bones lets Jim push him up and then he turns, scowling at him as he leaves the tub. "I'm only 35, you little shit; stop calling me an old man."

"You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only 35? Nah, doesn't fit. Where do you keep the towels?"

"Asshole. Cupboard by the sink."

He leans back against the wall, and Leonard thinks he might've nodded off, because Jim's wearing a pair of Leonard's grey sweatpants when he opens his eyes again.

"I assumed you'd rather I borrow these than walk around your house with everything dangling wild and free."

"You assumed right, you're vile."

"I think you're pretty too, Bones. Need a hand up?" Jim doesn't offer him a hand, just waits for Leonard to stagger to his feet, bracing himself against the wall.

"No." Leonard doesn't reach for the towel though, simply grabbing Jim's forearm when the blond starts patting down Leonard's left side down with barely there pats. "How did you know the bath would help?"

"Uh," Jim frowns at Leonard's hip, but he decides not to take it personally. "I know a guy who lost his lower leg. He had pains like yours. The nurse would put him in a bath and the warm water did some good I guess. She did other thing as well, but the bath stuck in my mind." Jim steps back, letting Leonard use him as a crutch when he climbed out the tub.

"I can get dressed by myself." Jim had already started to move away once Leonard was steady on his feet, but he felt compelled to say it anyway.

"I know. I'll go poke at your coffee machine until something happens."

He turns and leaves the bathroom, and Leonard can see the various patches of silvery skin –_bullet wound scars_ – decorated across Jim's back that explain why he was in a position to watch the nurses work.


	7. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

Jim stayed the night.

Leonard didn't want him to, but Leonard rarely seems to get what he wants these days.

"I'll be on the couch if you need me."

"What's wrong with your own couch?" Leonard scowled at him from his bed, watching as Jim traces patterns onto the wooden doorframe.

"It's all lumpy. Yours is much nicer." Jim turns to leave then, black shirt covering the scars on his back once more.

"I didn't tell you their names." He blurts it out before he can even think about the answer, and he wonders why the hell he's trying to prolong a conversation with Jim Kirk of all people. "How did you know?"

'_But I've never lost someone as close to me as close as Joanna and Jocelyn were to you, no.'_

"People say things when they're in pain, Bones." Jim shrugs, not bothering to turn back round. "You said their names. I put two and two together. Call me if you need anything."

Jim leaves him alone in his dark room then, and Leonard listens to the sound of his footsteps as he moves downstairs.

He's not sure how long he lies there, but eventually he falls asleep, and he thinks he can hear a door slamming, but he's too far gone to be sure.

Jim is still there when Leonard gets up, flicking through his TV channels.

"Did you go home to change?" The plain black shirt and jeans have been replaced with a plain white shirt and sweatpants.

"Yep. I had a shower while I was there too. I was going to have one here but your shampoo is really boring."

"Why didn't you just stay at home?" Leonard rolls his eyes at the fact Jim pauses on a kid's channel for a while before continuing with his channel surfing. "And how can a shampoo be boring?"

"I thought you might miss my company." The brat runs his hand through his hair, shaking his head as if he was in an ad for shampoo. "How are you meant to get hair as soft as mine if you use anything other than _Hydralicious_?"

"You're ridiculous. Get out my house. Take your shampoo discrimination with you."

"No seriously Bones, touch my hair."

"I am not touching any part of you; God knows where you've been."

"You wound me, Bones." Jim pouts at him, but stops touching his hair.

Leonard doesn't bother replying, choosing to busy himself with working the coffee machine instead.

"So I was thinking," Oh God, the kid was _thinking_. Leonard can see this ending horribly already. "Maybe we could go for a drive today."

"Why on earth would you think that?"

"You don't have work, I don't have work. I like spending time with you, you like spending time with me."

"I wouldn't go quite that far." Leonard turns to look at Jim and the kid is honest to God sticking his tongue out at Leonard. He puts it back in his mouth when he realizes Leonard is glaring at him.

"So, I'll wait while you shower?"

"Depends. Where do you want to go on this drive of yours?" Why is he even considering this? Jim's idiocy must be contagious.

"Wherever you want, Bones. With a stop at McDonalds though, I like their fries."

"You are actually an infant aren't you? You're not a marine, you're a four year old trapped in a 27 year old's body."

"Go use your lame shampoo Bones, I'll go get my baby." He's gone before Leonard can question him, or get offended on behalf of his shampoo.

Jim's 'baby' turns out to be an old beaten up Jeep.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?"

"Beautiful is one name for it. Does it break down every week or just every other one?"

"The Enterprise is a she, Bones." Jim's still stroking the car, not unlike he molested Leonard's coffee table a few days ago. "And she doesn't break down; Scotty would have my balls if I let her get that bad."

"You named your car? Oh God, I'm hanging out with a man that names his car."

"Shut up and get in, Bones." Jim frowns at him like he's insulted his mother. "I'm revoking your radio privileges."

Jim drives them around for a good five hours, with the promised stop at McDonalds (Jim gets Leonard a milkshake and ends up drinking most of it), and he doesn't try to talk to Leonard about last night, just goes on about things that Leonard doesn't have to pay attention to.

Although if he pays attention to the one about Jim getting Spock drunk, that's just because he didn't know Spock _could_ get drunk.

Leonard can feel himself relaxing the longer Jim talks. It's nice to have someone talk without expecting Leonard to respond.

But eventually, he has to ask.

"Are we going to talk about last night?"

Jim stops half way through his description of 'the world's perfect burger, I shit you not Bones, it was a thing of beauty' to look at Leonard.

"Do you want to talk about last night, Bones?"

"Not really."

"Then we won't." Jim shrugs and turns his gaze back to the road.

"But I cried on you. In the bath. Half naked."

"And I once cried in a bar full of bikers because I ate a really spicy pepper. Sometimes people cry, Bones, it's nothing worth worrying about. Although I would have preferred a more positive reaction to seeing me half naked, I will admit."

Leonard snorts, because really? A pepper?

"You shouldn't feel bad for being in pain, Bones. No one will judge you. I mean I cried like a baby when I got shot. I mean, it was the silent kind, but still. There were tears. Don't tell Uhura though. She totally thinks I'm a badass."

"No she doesn't."

"A man can dream, Bones, a man can dream."

After that Jim lets Leonard turn the radio, despite his 'revoked radio privileges', and goes back to talking while Leonard goes back to not paying attention.

They go out for drives more often as the days go out, Jim stops at McDonalds for lunch, Leonard manages to eat about five fries before Jim asks the inevitable "hey are you going to eat that?", and then they stop to stare at their surroundings for an hour, before they start the drive back home.

Leonard ignores Nyota's look of approval when Jim comes round to pick him up while she's there.

He gets more drunk than usual that night to spite her.

It's nice, Leonard supposes. Pretending that his life isn't a complete disaster.

Right up until Jim opens his mouth and proves his brain to mouth filter is unreliable at the best of times.

"Why are we here Jim?"

"Thought you might wanna see them." He can feel Jim's eyes on him but he can't take his gaze off the cemetery gates.

"You thought wrong. Take me home."

"Have you even seen them once, Bones?"

"Take me home, Jim."

"Because," Jim is ignoring the scowl Leonard is sending his way. "You haven't really talked about them. All I know is their names, Bones, and I only know that because you were out of your mind in pain at the time."

"Shut the fuck up, Jim."

"Are you even trying to move on, Bones? Because it really doesn't look that way, you're walking around like you're the one who died, like you're the one who's dead. I hate to break this to you, Bones, but you're not. You're alive. Blood is running through your veins, air is filling your lungs, and you're alive."

"I swear to God Jim if you don't shut the fuck up right this sec-"

"I'm not going to shut up Bones, because believe it or not you need to hear this!" Jim's voice rises then and he slams his hands on the steering wheel.

"You think this is what your wife would want? You think she'd want you like this? Or is this what you think your daughter wants for her da-"

He doesn't get much further than that before Leonard's fist finds itself in his face.

"Don't say one more god damned word to me, you son of a bitch." He spits the words at Jim – no, _Kirk_ – as he gets out of the jeep, slamming the door as hard as he can.

"Get back in the fucking car, Bones." Kirk's voice sounds nasally, and Bones glares at him long enough to see that he has more than likely broken the kid's nose, or at least punched him hard enough to give him a nose bleed.

"Go fuck yourself."

"Get back in the car. You can't walk back home, its 10 miles, Bones." Kirk deflates and sighs, wiping at the blood gathering on his chin. "Please get back in the car."

"Fuck off Kirk." It takes him a few seconds to remember the way back to his house, but then he starts walking, ignoring the way his hand is starting to ache.

"I'm not letting you walk 10 miles by yourself, Bones. Have you seen any horror films? This is how they start." Sure enough, Kirk starts the engine and the busted up Jeep is crawling along next to him.

They carry on this way for at least an hour, Kirk driving slowly along next to Leonard, ignoring the horns of cars over taking him, and Leonard walking on the side of the road, ignoring Kirk's attempts at apologizing.

And then Mother Nature turns on him as well.

"Bones it's raining and you're still at least half an hour away from your house! Get in the car!"

They're both standing in the rain now because Kirk can't take no for an answer.

"Please get in the car Bones, I'm sorry, okay? I was out of line."

"No shit." Leonard scoffs at him, and watches as the rain helps get rid of the dry blood on Kirk's face.

"I'm not saying it wasn't true," Kirk pauses, shuffling his feet. "But it was out of line. Please get in the car."

He thinks about punching Kirk again, and walking just to spite him, but he's cold, he's wet and the sooner he gets home the sooner he can slam a door in Jim Kirk's face.

He doesn't bother putting his seatbelt on, and when Kirk finally pulls up outside his house, Leonard's out the car and has his keys out before the asshole can say a word.

"We need to talk about this, Bones."

"Talk about what? The fact you're an asshole? I'll pass, thanks." He doesn't need to turn around to know Kirk followed him to the door. "Go to the hospital and get your nose looked at, or don't. I don't really give a shit, just leave me the fuck alone."

He slams the door just as Kirk opens his mouth to say something, and heads straight to his kitchen, and the half empty bottle of bourbon waiting there for him.

He thinks of Joanna, remembers her pink dress she wore on her fifth birthday party, how she laughed when he gave her a piggy back ride around their garden.

But suddenly, she isn't laughing, and they're not enjoying the Georgia sun.

"Why don't you miss me, Daddy?"

"I do, baby, I miss you and your momma more than anything." Leonard's voice breaks, and it takes a few moments for him to realise he's crying.

"Why don't you talk about us?" Joanna sounds so sad that Leonard can't stop himself from reaching out to touch her, but she steps out of his reach and Leonard feels something inside of him die.

"I want to, but it hurts, baby girl. It really hurts." It hurts all the worse the further Joanna moves away from him, until Leonard was left alone in his kitchen, crying and broken.

Leonard isn't sure how long he sits there for, but he flinches when he realizes he's cold, that Joanna took the rest of his soul with her when she vanished.

Suddenly it's too much and too little, his world is too dark and too bright and Leonard can't do this anymore.

It takes half an hour to find the will to push himself out of his seat.

It takes two minutes to find the bottle of painkillers he's neglected to take until today.

It takes another five to finish his drink.

Time loses its meaning after that.

"Bones? Nyota told me where the spare key was. Bones you at home, bud? Bon— _fuck _Leonard!" There are hands moving him onto his side, and he groans, trying to move away.

He can hear a voice, and he knows that voice – _Bones stay with me man,_ _come on_ – but he can't put it to a name before he's throwing up again.

And then he's being moved, and there are more voices.

"—I'm his neighbour."

"Bones man open your eyes, come on Bones."

"—35 old male—"

"_Bones!"_

He opens his eyes and sees the white ceiling and white walls of the hospital.

Jim Kirk is a dark mess of leather and bruises asleep in the visitor's chair.

Leonard hates him for it.


	8. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

"I'm sorry Bones."

Jim doesn't leave Leonard's hospital room, it seems.

Leonard knows he does leave though, because occasionally the black shirt is swapped for a white one, and sometimes the leather jacket is replaced by a grey hoodie.

"I don't care."

Jim sighs, and sinks a few inches lower into the visitor's chair, nodding.

"I know."

**-0-**

Nyota visits him every day when she finishes work, and sometimes Spock is with her.

The first day she drags Jim out into the hallway, but Leonard isn't sure why she bothered because he can still hear her, clear as a bell.

"_What the hell do you think you were doing, Jim?! Not everyone is in the God damned marines!_

"_Nyota I'm sorry okay I know it was a di—"_

"_Oh you're sorry? Well that's okay then!"_

Spock shuts the door then, and Nyota must lower her voice because all he can hear now is Jim saying "I'm sorry" and "I know".

Nyota comes back in and punches Leonard in the leg before crawling onto the bed to lie next to him.

It's her way of showing she cares without actually having to say anything. She's the only person that can make him appreciate a dead leg.

Jim doesn't show up until the next time Leonard wakes up.

**-0-**

M'Benga and Chapel visit him once, explaining why they were keeping him in so long – to make sure he doesn't go home and just give it another try is the real reason and everyone knows it, but whatever helps them sleep at night – but they left after ten minutes of painfully awkward silence and they have yet to return.

So his night nurse is a woman named Gaila, and she's beautiful with her bright red hair and her perfect smile.

She never smiles at Jim.

She doesn't speak to him until she's about to leave, and then it's never anything more than the three words, repeated twice every night.

"_Goodnight, Captain Kirk."_

"_Call me Jim, Gaila, please."_

"_Goodnight, Captain Kirk."_

When Leonard falls asleep on the nights Gaila doesn't smile at Jim, the blonde always looks older than when Leonard woke up.

Leonard doesn't know how to feel about that, so he pretends he doesn't see the dark shadows around Jim's eyes.

"She hates me." Gaila had just left them, with a smile for Leonard and a nod for _Captain Kirk_. "She hates me and I don't blame her."

Leonard looks over at him, and the shadows surrounding Jim's eyes are still there, but there's also a sad smile, and it's getting harder to ignore the feeling that although he's the one in the bed, Jim is the one who looks exhausted down to their bones.

"Why?" He has to ask, because Gaila doesn't hate. Gaila is love, and joy, and does not hate people.

He ignores that it's the first thing he's said to Jim since he first woke up in the hospital.

He tries to ignore a lot of things when it comes to Jim Kirk.

"I promised her I'd keep her fiancé safe, and then I brought him home in a box."

Leonard doesn't know what to say to that, so he doesn't. He just turns his gaze away from Jim's sad smile, and closes his eyes to the flashes of silver from the ring hanging on a chain around Gaila's neck, and goes to sleep.

He tries not to think about the fact it feels a lot like he's running away from something.

**-0-**

"I hate you."

It's 2:30am and they're both awake in the dark room, and Leonard doesn't know how Jim's gotten around the issue of visiting hours but he's too tired to care at this point.

Jim stopped sighing two days ago.

Now he just nods, like he's agreeing with Leonard.

"I know."

Leonard hates him more every day.

**-0-**

"What was Jocelyn like?" Jim sounds curious, and Leonard can feel his gaze on him, but looking at Jim makes his chest feel heavy, and it's not the numb feeling Leonard almost feels at home with nowadays.

"She was perfect."

The '_unlike you_'goes unsaid, but he can see Jim flinch from the corner of his eye, and Leonard thinks that maybe Jim heard it anyway.

**-0-**

"You should eat that, Bones. You'll feel better."

Jim waves a hand towards the tray on his lap, and Leonard would complain about the taste of hospital food if it weren't for the fact he hasn't tasted food at all since the crash.

"The last time you told me I needed to do something it didn't end too well."

_Believe it or not you need to hear this!_

Jim makes a choking noise but doesn't try to talk to Leonard for the rest of the day.

Leonard manages to finish half of a sandwich and ignores Jim's half smile and the ache in his chest.

**-0-**

"We can't let you go back to an empty house, Leonard." M'Benga has finally shown his face again, but he keeps shifting his weight from foot to foot and Leonard's left with the feeling he drew the short straw.

Nyota is glaring at him from where she's stolen a corner of Leonard's bed, and Spock is standing next to her, gaze moving from Leonard to Jim slowly, as if he's trying to figure out a problem.

"Why? Worried I'll try to kill myself again?"

He can feel Jim's gaze snap to him from his perch by the window, having given up his usual seat for M'Benga.

Everyone else looks away from him.

"Yes. Actually. Do you have anyone who can stay with you, until you… get back on your feet?" _Until you don't want to die anymore_

Jim blurts out a 'yes' just as Leonard says 'no', and everyone but Spock looks concerned.

"I can stay with him. I live next door anyway so it wouldn't be much of a problem."

Leonard doesn't even have it in him to argue anymore, he just nods and signs the paperwork when it's put in front of him.

They bundle him into Jim's jeep – the Enterprise, he remembers – and Jim doesn't speak throughout the entire journey.

It's strange, considering he's barely moved from the hospital bed for the best part of two weeks, how much he wants to crawl into his own bed and stay there.

Jim walks him up to the bedroom and stands in the doorway, opening and closing his mouth like he wants to say something, but in the end he just turns away, saying something about grabbing clothes and a blanket, and then Leonard hears the front door shut.

He kicks his shoes off, grabs Jocelyn's perfume and sprays it onto a pillow, and falls asleep with it pressed against his face.

**-0-**

"You're not Jocelyn."

Jim's sitting on Leonard's couch watching the TV with the sound off, and he pauses to glance at the time – its 3am and neither of them are asleep – before he turns to look at Leonard.

Leonard's not sure why he's awake, or why he left his bed. But he's here now.

"I know." Jim doesn't move, and Leonard can see the colours from the TV reflected in his dog tags.

"You can't fix me."

"I know."

"Then why are you here?!" Leonard grabs the nearest thing and throws it at Jim's head, and suddenly he wants nothing more than for Jim to argue with him, to shout back, and he can't stop shaking because he's just so _angry_.

But Jim doesn't shout, and he doesn't react to the magazine that impacts with the side of his head, he just blinks at Bones, and sighs.

"I'm not going to try to fix you, Bones, I can't even fix myself."

He doesn't understand what that's supposed to mean until he's woken up by Jim's screaming.

If he pulls up some research papers on PTSD the next morning when Jim goes for his morning jog, that's just because he's bored.

**-0-**

"Have you touched anything in Joanna's room?"

Jim's questions are curious, not meant to hurt but do anyway.

"How many men have you lost?"

Leonard's aim straight for Jim's heart, and are asked purely to watch Jim's reaction.

Neither of their questions get answered, and they both leave the room in pain.

**-0-**

Nyota drops by one night after work, makes them dinner and stays late enough that she accepts Jim's offer of a lift home without insulting his car once.

"Why did you walk home in the first place?"

"Seemed like a good idea at the time, now shut up and take me home, pretty boy." Nyota pushes her high heels into his chest, choosing to ignore his grunt to press kisses to Leonard's cheeks.

"Sir, yes, sir." Jim's keeping one eye on Leonard as he pulls his shoes on, and it makes him think of the look parents give teenagers before they leave them in an empty house: suspicious and unsure.

It reminds him that he'll never see Joanna as a teenager, and that hurts enough to make him snap.

"I'll try not to wind up dead while you're gone."

Jim's jaw clenches, but when he shuts the door it barely makes a sound.

**-0-**

"You don't sleep enough."

It's true. Jim's got bags around his eyes and Leonard watched as he fell asleep sitting at the kitchen table that morning, watched as he jolted awake less than five minutes later.

"You sleep too much. I guess we balance each other out." Jim doesn't put any effort into the joke, just blinks at Leonard from his place on the couch.

It's the first time they've tried talking to each other in days.

Leonard digs his fingers into the side of his armchair, pulling his foot underneath him.

"I can forget they're gone when I'm asleep." It works, until he tries to push himself up and falls because he only has one arm now.

"I don't see explosions behind my eyelids when I'm awake." Jim shrugs as if it's an everyday problem everyone has. It takes a moment to sink in that for a long time, for Jim and his men, it probably was.

"You're driving us to McDonalds later, I want fries."

It's a flimsy excuse, but Jim just gives Leonard this smile and Leonard knows Jim won't push him to carry on with a conversation that's painful for both of them.

He wonders when he stopped wanting to hurt Jim too much.

He wonders why he cares.

**-0-**

"When did you become a marine?"

"I joined the naval academy when I was 17, and I became a Second Lieutenant when I was 20."

They're sitting in the McDonalds parking lot, and Leonard is letting Jim steal his fries when Jim thinks he isn't looking.

"Did you always want to be a marine?" Leonard thinks back to when he was 10 and trying to pronounce the words in his father's medical journals.

Jim does this really unattractive snort into his coke and grins at Leonard.

"God no. I'm glad I did join up though. Even if the academy was full of dickheads."

"Were your parents marines? You didn't just wake up one day and think 'hey I'll go join the marines that sounds like fun'. You're an idiot but no one is that crazy."

Leonard isn't sure why he's so interested. It's probably the fresh air; it's going straight to his head after weeks indoors.

"Uh, my grandpa was in the navy and my dad, uh, yeah, he was a marine," Jim's face does this weird thing like he's trying to smile and frown at the same time. "Mum's a scientist though; she looks at moon rocks and stuff. But I didn't sign up because of them; it's… a long story. Too long considering you're out of fries."

He looks down and sure enough, the bastard's eaten them all.

He's pretty sure it was so Leonard would stop asking questions.

He ignores the twinge in his chest when he thinks Jim doesn't want him to know about his past, and chooses to flick some of his chocolate milkshake at Jim instead.

"Asshole."


	9. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

After Nyota tells them off for living on McDonalds, Jim starts driving them to this small diner he found for lunch on days they can't be bothered to cook, or Jim forgot to go shopping.

They end up eating there more often than they did at McDonalds.

Jim says he likes it because he doesn't eat as much junk food when they eat here.

Leonard knows that's bullshit because the waitresses here fall for Jim's blonde hair, blue eyes routine every time and give him extra bacon.

"What do you think about Iowa, Bones?"

"I don't."

He went once, with his grandparents. They spent a weekend out there and Leonard ran through cornfields with a stray dog he named Sophie. It was fun, but he hadn't been back to the state since.

"It's just I have to," Jim pauses and stabs at his bacon like it had offended him. "I have to go back, and uh, well I don't know how long I'd be gone, so I was thinking, I was thinking maybe you'd like to come with me?"

Leonard decides not to comment on the fact Jim doesn't say 'I have to go back _home_'

"Like a vacation?"

"Yeah, sure. A vacation. Why not?"

"For an unknown amount of time?" Jim's finished trying to kill his bacon, and has moved onto frowning at the menus. Leonard helps Jim's extra bacon find its new home on his plate.

"They're think—I'm thinking about a few months. Six, roughly. We should be home by November. If you want to go, that is."

He's saved from replying, or even thinking about what his reply would be, because he really doesn't know, when Spock slides into the seat next to Jim, and it's a testament to how long they've known the guy that they barely bat an eyelash at Spock's tendencies to occasionally appear out of nowhere.

Leonard does, however, blink at Spock's tie. Today, it's a hideous shade of orange.

As a prosecutor, Spock practically lives in suits. Leonard is pretty sure more than one is designer, not that Spock will ever admit to spending that much on something.

Nyota, for all her talent when it comes to languages and getting people to buy houses they didn't know they wanted, has no such talent when it comes to ties, and picks out the most disgusting ties Leonard's ever seen for her husband, and because Spock is a gentleman, and loves his wife dearly, he wears them.

The worst one was pastel pink and had ugly kittens plastered all over it.

Leonard offered to burn it for him. Spock thought about it for a long time before he declined.

The fact they've known him so long is also probably the reason they share a look of 'what the fuck' when Spock orders a cup of coffee.

Leonard can't speak for Jim – because he isn't actually sure how long Jim and Spock have known each other – but in the five years he's known Spock, the man has never once drank coffee. The first, and last, time Leonard offered Spock coffee, the man looked at him as if Leonard asked if he'd like Leonard to piss in a mug for him.

"Everything alright there, Spock?" Jim's eyes keep flickering from Spock to the cup of coffee like the man's holding a bomb. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't Spock.

"Nyota's pregnant."

No one says anything else, Leonard is pretty sure Spock is in shock, but between them they manage to drink six cups of coffee before they leave the diner.

Jim manages to make drive them half way to Spock's house before he cracks.

"So is the baby going to have Nyota's ponytail or your bowl cut when it comes out? Because if it's the latter you need to promise to never show the baby pictures to people." He's grinning at himself like a fool, and Leonard is pretty sure he can define this as the moment he realised Jim was an infant.

They're still at Spock's two hours later, with Spock recovered enough to be nursing a cup of tea, and Jim having run out of jokes five minutes ago and instead choosing to lie on the sofa with his ear pressed to Nyota's – still flat – stomach.

"But where's the bump? Pregnant ladies get a bump right?"

"Yeah, when they're pregnant for more than five minutes maybe, the doctors think I'm roughly six weeks gone, no bump yet, genius." Nyota's smiling down at Jim despite her 'you're an idiot' tone and she reminds Leonard so much of Jocelyn when they found out she was pregnant with Joanna he has to look away.

**-0-**

"Iowa sounds okay, I guess."

They're in the car heading home after Spock politely kicked them out, and Jim gives him this look like he knows why Leonard's suddenly decided to play nice with the other kids, but for once decides to leave it alone.

"Okay. We can leave next week if you like? We can uh, buy new clothes when we're there, so you won't have to pack your whole wardrobe."

"You're just saying that because your whole wardrobe consists of about five shirts, one of which has a hole in the armpit."

"Shut up, Bones."

**-0-**

True to his word, a week later Jim wakes him at 5am for the drive into Atlanta, and two hours later Leonard finds himself on a plane.

He really wishes he'd remembered he was shit scared of flying a bit earlier.

"Jim if you don't shut the fuck up talking about percentages I will murder you in your sleep."

"You wouldn't do that to me, Bones."

"I can – and will – make it look like an accident Jim."

Jim swallows whatever he had been about to say, and suddenly decides the window is extremely interesting.

Leonard had originally been the one with the window seat. Jim offered to swap after Leonard threatened to throw up on him.

The only problem now is he can feel the woman sat next to them glance at his arm, or the space where his arm should be, every few minutes, and he can feel his shoulders tensing up.

Jim must notice something's wrong because he jabs Leonard in the ribs.

"Bones seriously it'll be fine, just try to sleep through it." Jim's doing his stupid smile that gets him extra bacon, Leonard wonders if he'll still be smiling when they crash and die.

"Oh yeah sure, let me just sleep through my fiery dea– What are you doing?" Leonard blinks down at his hand, his hand which Jim has entwined with his own.

He can't help but notice Jim has very slim hands, and his tan fades at his wrist just before the skin's covered by Jim's beat up old leather jacket.

"I'm holding your hand, Bones. It's meant to be relaxing, or comforting, or whatever." Jim won't stop grinning at him, and because he's a massive prick he just squeezes Leonard's hand tighter.

"Your hands are sweaty and gross, let go of me." They're not. Jim's hands are warm and surprisingly soft. That doesn't mean Jim needs to know that.

Jim just smiles and squeezes his hand again. Dickhead.

If Leonard squeezed back when the plane took off, that's between him and God.

Jim starts talking about five minutes after takeoff when it's pretty obvious Leonard isn't going to relax because the only thing keeping them from crashing is the constant '_don't crash don't crash don't crash don't crash_' running through his mind.

Leonard's confident Jim isn't expecting him to pay attention – he caught the words 'Chinchilla' and 'fur density' – but he tries to focus on the words anyway, but eventually he finds himself nodding off, Jim's voice acting as background noise.

"Just trust me, Bones. Go to sleep. It'll be fine, I've got you."

Leonard thinks he can feel Jim's thumb rubbing circles onto the palm of his hand, but he's too tired to be sure.

He doesn't wake up until Jim shakes him awake two hours later so they can exit the plane.

It's a half hour drive from the airport to Riverside, Jim's hometown apparently, and Leonard's close to falling asleep again when Jim parks the rental car.

"Are you sure this is your house?"

They've parked in front of a small farmhouse that looks like it could use a fresh lick of paint, but still has a nice homely look to it. There's nothing but fields and the occasional tree for miles around.

"Yes I'm sure. Why, were you expecting a shack?"

"Yeah, actually." He shuts the door in Jim's face and steps onto the porch, watching as Jim tries, and fails, to get all their bags into the house in one trip.

Jim gives him a tour, which basically consists of walking around the house and muttering the names of the rooms (one living room, a kitchen, a dining room, two bedrooms and a bathroom) as they pass them.

"It was my grandfather Tiberius' house."

"Your grandfather was called Tiberius?" It takes a moment to sink in, why Jim won't meet his eye all of a sudden, but when it does; Leonard can't stop the grin that forms. "That's what the T. in your name stands for isn't it? James Tiberius Kirk."

"Fuck off Horatio."

Leonard would be more upset if it weren't for the fact Nyota let him in on the fact Jim googled him, and that's how he found out about his middle name. As it is he just laughs.

Eventually Jim forgives him enough to drag Leonard's luggage into the bedroom he'll be taking over for the next few months, and between them they manage to get most of their stuff unpacked before Leonard crashes on the couch.

"Bones are you alright if I step out for an hour or two? I've just got to go see a man about a cat. I'll see if I can grab us some dinner."

"Dog."

"What?" Jim's frowning at him from the doorway, and Leonard wonders if he can kick his shoes off without moving.

He can't.

"The phrase is; got to see a man about a dog."

"Oh right. Well, got to see a man about a domesticated animal. Later Bones!" Jim is out the door before Leonard can decide on which insult to shout at him. But true to his word, two hours later, Jim returns with fries and beer.

If Leonard stopped to think for a minute, he'd probably ask Jim why he smelt of hospital disinfectant.

**-0-**

It wasn't the fact that she burst through the door at 11 o'clock at night.

It wasn't the fact that she fell to her knees as soon as Jim was within touching distance.

It was the fact that for the first time in his life, Leonard McCoy saw Nyota without her eyeliner, with messy hair, and with tears running down her face.

It hurt more than he can explain.

"Nyota? Talk to me, what's wrong? Where's Spock?" Jim's couching on the floor with his arms around Nyota, and when she starts crying even harder all it takes is a panicked look from Jim for Leonard to be up and out his seat and half way across the room before he's even thought about moving.

"Come on sweetheart, talk to me. Are you hurt, is Spock with you?" Leonard crouches down next to them and eventually Nyota calms down look enough to mumble into Jim's neck.

"You drove? Nyota that's a 16 hour drive! Why would you dri—" Jim cuts himself off and Leonard can see his grip tighten around Nyota for a second before it relaxes again. When he speaks next his voice is soft. "Let's just… Let's just get you into a bed."

Leonard manages to get Nyota's car keys from her and by the time he's searched the car and discovered the only thing she brought with her are the clothes on her back and her phone, but it's battery is flat, and Leonard's pretty sure Jim doesn't have a phone charger lying around, Jim's managed to get Nyota into his bed and Leonard can hear them talking in quiet voices.

He wants to go in and help, but besides standing around looking confused, there isn't much Leonard can do, so he changes into his pyjamas and crawls into his bed.

Jim appears in his doorway just after midnight, but Leonard can't bring him to start the conversation, because the sinking feeling in his chest is a pretty good indicator that he's not going to enjoy the discussion at all.

"Nyota had a miscarriage." Jim's voice is barely above a whisper, but it still sounds too loud in the dark room. Leonard doesn't know what to say because even though he thinks that deep down, he knew it from the second she showed up in tears, he was still hoping otherwise. "I rang Spock to let him know where she is, apparently he was in trial out of town and she was gone by the time he got home. She drove here straight from the hospital."

"You didn't tell hi—"

"No, no." Jim sighs and Leonard feels the bed shift again, and when he rolls over, Jim's lying down next to him, staring at the ceiling. "I just told him to get out here as soon as possible, he'll be on the first flight out tomorrow."

"Do you want me to tell him?" He isn't sure why he asks, because the last thing he wants is to have to be the one to tell Spock, but he can't help but feel guilty at the sheer _relief_ that he feels when Jim shakes his head.

"I'll do it, just," Jim pauses and sighs another one of those sighs belonging to a man twice Jim's age. "Do you mind if I sleep in here tonight? I gave Nyota my bed and as comfortable as your couch is Bones, I'd rather not sleep on a couch again tonight."

Leonard opens his mouth to say 'no' but then Jim turns his head to look at him, and he's met with a 27 year old man who looks 40, and there are bags under his eyes that weren't there an hour ago.

In the end he shuts his mouth again and nods, rolling back over onto his side, closing his eyes when he feels Jim's weight settle back onto the bed.

"Thanks, Bones."

He isn't sure how long they lie there, because looking at the clock means that this is real and not just another nightmare, but eventually Leonard finds himself breathing in and out to match Jim, and he's shifted to catch more of Jim's warmth.

"Why are we in Iowa Jim?" There's no answer, and Leonard's almost convinced himself Jim's fallen asleep when he finally speaks up.

"My mom is dying."

There's nothing Leonard can say to that, so he doesn't.

Jim is gone by the time he wakes up.


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

As a surgeon, Leonard has had to stand in front of a stranger, and he's had to be the one that gives them the news that he's sorry, but nothing could be done, and their _sondaughterwifehusbandbrothersister _didn't make it.

That doesn't make it any easier to have to watch Jim do it to Spock.

Leonard's hidden himself in the kitchen, but from this angle he can see Spock, and it's like watching a car crash. He really doesn't want to watch, but he can't look away.

They're speaking too quietly for him to hear what's being said, and it takes a while for Leonard to realise that Spock isn't actually talking, he's just staring at Jim like he's watched his world be destroyed in front of his very eyes.

Leonard knows it's not too far from the truth.

At some point Jim stops talking, and just lets out a sigh, and Spock turns and heads into the bedroom. Leonard wonders if he even hears the 'I'm so sorry' that Jim says to his back.

He's nearly out the kitchen when he's struck with the image of Jim having to tell a family that he failed to protect their loved one. That they're not coming home, not this time.

He's gasping in air before he even realises that he remembers how to breathe, and he realises he can't see Jim, not now. He slips into his borrowed bedroom and shuts the door as quietly as he can.

He slips under the blankets and ignores the voice in his head that hisses 'coward.'

He dreams of how beautiful Jocelyn was when she was pregnant with Joanna; she was warm and happy and Leonard could wrap his arms around her waist and feel his baby girl kick.

He pulled the blankets tighter around himself when he realized Spock wouldn't know how that felt.

Not just yet.

**-0-**

"Bones? Are you hiding in here?"

"I'm a 37 year old man, Jim, I don't hide." His voice is muffled because he pulled his pillow over his head when he heard crying an hour ago. It was a man, but thinking about whether it was Spock or Jim makes his chest ache and he hurts too much already.

But that does not mean he's hiding.

"Mind if I hide with you? It was… It was hard."

"I'm not hiding."

But he flips back the covers all the same.

And that's how two grown men end up hiding under the blankets together at 5:30pm on a Tuesday. The only movement comes from Jim when he moves his legs slightly. Leonard's been meaning to ask him about that, about whether Jim's scars hurt him the way Leonard's arm hurts him.

"I thought I was done telling people their family members were dead."

Leonard isn't sure what he can say that would make Jim feel any better, so he just shifts instead, pressing his foot against Jim's calf.

"I'm not going to get the surgery to get a prosthesis."

Turns out neither of them are any good at conversations they don't actually want to have, because Jim just moves so they're pressed hip to hip.

**-0-**

When Leonard wakes up next, his face is buried in Jim's armpit, and Jim's poking at the scar tissue on his left hip.

"I got this when a landmine went off nearby."

"I have a scar from when I got a paper cut between my fingers." Leonard isn't sure how to move his face away from Jim's armpit without accidentally getting armpit hair in his eye or his mouth, so he stays where he is for now.

"Show off. Its 3am, by the way, if you want to go back to sleep."

"If it's 3am, why aren't you asleep?"

"I have bad dreams. Plus I don't need as much sleep as you do, old man." He thinks Jim is grinning down at him, but he's not willing to risk hair to the eye to find out for sure.

It would be so easy to tell Jim to fuck off, to talk without talking – they're experts at that by now – but it's 3am and Leonard can feel every breathe Jim takes.

"Do you believe in God?" It wasn't the question he wanted to ask, but it's the one that comes out. Leonard isn't sure what that says about him.

"I don't know anymore, Bones." There's something in Jim's voice that makes Leonard want to run away from this conversation, from this house. He wants to run away because he's heard it in his own voice, when he speaks of Jocelyn and Joanna.

Instead he sits up and presses his shoulder against Jim's, and ignores the way he tightens his grip on his dog tags.

"I've killed men I've never seen the faces of. I dream of dead men and I can't tell if they're my men, men I couldn't protect, or men I've killed an—"

Jim breaks off and presses closer to Leonard.

"If there is a God, I can't help but worry about what went through his mind when he made a man like me."

Leonard wiggles onto his side and uses Jim's shoulder as a pillow, and by the time Jim lifts his arm to wrap it around Leonard's shoulders light is starting to creep in through the gaps in the curtains.

At 5am Jim gets up to go into the shower, and Leonard gets up to make coffee.

They don't talk about it.

**-0-**

Nyota is curled up next to Spock on the living room sofa when Leonard finally manages to drag himself away from the coffee machine, and he can see they have their bags packed and by the front door, but for now Spock is asleep and Nyota is running her hands through his hair.

It's a beautiful sofa, made of leather but worn down and used enough to have a kind of soft quality to it. It's big enough for three people, and there's a blanket slung over the back.

Leonard might be just the slightest bit in love with it.

"So did you and Jim snuggle up last night or did you make him sleep on the floor?"

"For someone who's meant to be a highly respected business woman, you are the biggest child I know."

Nyota grins, and steals a sip from his coffee when Leonard throws himself down next to her, and he realizes her hair is back in its ponytail and her eyeliner is as flawless as ever.

Leonard wonders when his happiness became so dependent on eyeliner.

"You're just jealous I can work a pencil skirt better than you, it's sad, Leo."

He almost loses himself in thinking of what Joanna would look like in a business outfit, of how she would do her eyeliner and if Jocelyn would show her how when Jim throws himself on top of the three of them, careful when it comes to putting his legs across Nyota's lap, but not so much when his foot hits Leonard in the gut and when he almost headbutts Spock.

Leonard reckons there are better ways for someone to wake up from a nap than to Jim Kirk trying to say "I look hot in a pencil skirt" around a mouth full of cereal.

It's not perfect by any means, and it'll be months – possibly years – before anyone is remotely okay with talking about it, but for now Nyota is laughing and Spock is trying to set Jim aflame with just the power of his glare, and that's a damn sight better than the tears and grief of yesterday, so Leonard joins Spock in the 'alert Jim to how disgusting he is without using words' effort.

He's wonderfully oblivious to them both.

The asshole.

**-0-**

They're in Iowa for Jim's mother, but they end up spending the afternoon after Spock and Nyota head home at his father's grave.

It only takes Bones two hours to think of a way to start a conversation; he almost manages to be proud of himself.

"We could start a dead dad club."

Jim blinks at him, and Leonard can't tell if he looks like he's going to laugh or cry, and he can't help but hope it's the former because he really doesn't have enough alcohol in his flask for the latter.

"You really suck at talking to people, Bones, do you know that?" Jim's laughing now though, and Leonard reckons that's better than staring blankly at a military grave for two hours.

"We could have leather jackets, it'd be great."

"Would you be able to fit a leather jacket over all those jumpers? Six is a bit over the top, Bones, c'mon."

Leonard scowls at Jim's standard leather jacket, jeans, and a shirt that probably has a hole in the armpit combination, and then down at his own reasonable _four_ jumpers (with two undershirts), and yeah maybe four is a bit over the top, but not everyone can be a human furnace like James T. Dickhead Kirk.

"It's October, asshole, and at least I wasn't mistaken for a homeless person."

"Fuck you. That was one time and she was partially blind anyway."

"Of course she was." She wasn't. "How did your dad die?" Leonard watches an old lady sitting at a grave a little while always, and wonders who she's placing flowers for.

He wonders if someone will place flowers for him when he's gone.

He hopes they're not the really ugly yellow ones you can buy for $1.99 at a gas station. Those flowers would probably call him back from the dead just to slap sense into whoever brought them.

"You know in war films there's always that one guy that jumps on a grenade or whatever to save everyone else? Like what Steve Rogers did in the Captain America film before he was actually Captain America?"

Leonard nods, because he hopes to God Jim isn't going to say what he thinks he's going to say, but at the same time he already knows how George Kirk died without having to look at the gravestone in front of them.

"Turns out there are people that actually do that," Jim's clutching at his dog tags – Leonard just realized most guys don't have four and it's like a punch in the gut when he realizes Jim wears his dad's dog tags – and smiles at the white headstone without actually smiling. "And not all of them are as lucky as Steve Rogers."

They sit there for another hour, because how are you meant to reply to that? _Hey it's great your dad saved everyone else, shame he didn't save himself huh?_

Eventually Leonard decides to just carry on with the show and tell theme of the day and blurts out; "I killed my dad."

Leonard isn't sure what he expects Jim to do, maybe ask Leonard what he means by 'I killed my dad', he really doesn't.

But what he doesn't expect is for Jim to pull vouchers for McDonalds out of his pocket with an "I won't tell Nyota if you don't."

Somehow Nyota finds out anyway.

It just confirms Jim's theory that she actually has magical powers.


End file.
